If he comes to trial, Mr. Chirac will be the first former French head of state to be prosecuted on corruption charges, offering a humiliating bookend to a political career that spanned more than 30 years. A statement from his office described him as “serene” in face of the accusations.

The order by the magistrate, Xavière Simeoni, may still be challenged by public prosecutors who have already requested that the charges against the conservative Mr. Chirac, 76, be dropped, saying that there were no grounds to pursue them and that some were nullified by the statute of limitations.

If the prosecutors appeal Friday’s order, it could take months for judges to determine whether he should face trial on charges of diverting public money, which carry a maximum 10-year jail sentence and a $210,000 fine. One of Mr. Chirac’s most prominent aides during his presidency, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, is in court defending himself against separate charges of planning a smear campaign in 2003 and 2004 to thwart the ambitions of Nicolas Sarkozy, a political rival who is now the president.

The charges against Mr. Chirac and nine other people relate to his years as mayor of Paris from 1977 to 1995. He is accused of awarding contracts for fictitious positions as city advisers in return for political favors. Public suspicion about his past followed him through his years as president.

Mr. Chirac was elected president in 1995 and remained in office until 2007. His position as president gave him constitutional immunity from prosecution, which fell away when he left office. Preliminary embezzlement charges were filed soon afterward, but he denied them vigorously in a letter to the newspaper Le Monde in November 2007.

“Never were the resources of the city of Paris used for ambitions other than to benefit Parisians,” the letter said. “Never was there personal enrichment. Never was there a ‘system.’ ” Several aides to Mr. Chirac faced trial on corruption charges while the president was still in office, including former Prime Minister Alain Juppé, convicted in 2004 of party finance irregularities.

More recently, a Paris court last Tuesday ordered a three-year prison term for a former interior minister, Charles Pasqua, and a $562,000 fine for Jean-Christophe Mitterrand, son of former President François Mitterrand, for their involvement in illegal arms trafficking to Angola in the 1990s.

In a statement, Mr. Chirac’s office said that the charges related to 21 contracts, but that he was “serene and determined to establish before a tribunal that none of the jobs that remained under discussion were nonexistent jobs.”

Photo

Former French President Jacques Chirac attended the funeral of President Omar Bongo of Gabon in June.Credit
Martin Bureau/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Those charged with him include a former minister, Michel Roussin; the former labor leader, Marc Blondel; and Jean de Gaulle, a grandson of Charles de Gaulle.

Friday’s ruling drew an ambiguous response from many French politicians, including an old adversary, Ségolène Royal, a former Socialist presidential contender. “These are old stories and, today, Jacques Chirac probably has lots of things on his conscience, but at the same time he has given a lot to the country,” she told Europe 1 radio. “He deserves to be left alone, but justice must be the same for everyone.”

Some of Mr. Chirac’s allies saw the magistrate’s order as what Jean-François Probst, a former adviser, called a “settling of scores at the highest levels of power,” 20 years after the alleged transgressions took place. But critics like André Vallini, a Socialist lawmaker, said that, while the order showed the workings of an independent French judiciary, “I have the feeling that this is coming pretty late.”

Mr. Chirac’s memoirs are to be published next month, and opinion surveys this month showed that, in marked contrast to 2007 when he left office, he ranked as France’s most popular politician.